Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 – April 15, 1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, also known as "The Thinking Machine" for his application of logic to any and all situations. Futrelle died in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Futrelle left the Boston American in 1906 to focus his attention on writing novels. He had a house built in Scituate, Massachusetts, which he called "Stepping Stones", and spent most of his time there until his death in 1912.

Returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first-cabin passenger, refused to board a lifeboat insisting his wife board instead until the point of forcing her in. His wife remembered the last she saw of him, he was smoking a cigarette with John J. Astor. He perished in the Atlantic, and his body was never found. Futrelle's last work, "My Lady's Garter", was published posthumously later in 1912. His wife inscribed in the book, "To the heroes of the Titanic, I dedicate this my husband's book" under a photo of her late husband. On 29 July 1912 his mother, Linnie Futrelle, died in her Georgia home; her death was attributed to grief over her son's death.

Futrelle is used as the protagonist in The Titanic Murders, a novel about two murders aboard the Titanic, by Max Allan Collins.

"The House That Was" (a literary experiment with his wife, in the which The Thinking Machine provided a rational solution to the seemingly impossible and supernatural events of a ghost story written by May) (online)